HellSinG's Weblog Site • NuTang.com

As most of you might not have known, I actually am quite into fishing, or angling, as some might call it. However, even though I have a circle of friends who fish too, none of them so far have been willing to spare some time to spend on teaching me the basic techniques.

Until abt a month ago, before which, huan and myself had been going to the rocks at our nearby reservoir to catch lobsters, and mostly our technique and equipment were so down pat that we never failed to come back with at least 20 or so of the critters after a couple hrs work. Mostly, we released them back afterwards, only twice, we each took back the night's catch to eat..and anyway, they didn't taste that good after all, being freshwater variety.

But enough abt that, getting back to my main topic..after we got sick of catching lobsters, huan suggested that we go fishing instead, as our local reservoir/ jetty area is actually teeming with lots of freshwater species, the most common being the giant snakehead, or toman as some call it, but mostly just known as siam rui among locals.

Since I only knew peanuts abt fishing, huan agreed to teach me the basic stuff, together with another kaki of ours, alvin, who is also quite experienced in the sport, but not so much as huan.

And so, I started learning the art of angling tomans, and after 3 weekends of empty-handed expeditions, I finally caught my first toman ytd evening at ard 7pm at the local reservoir. Not only that, it was quite a monster of a fish, weighing in at 7 plus kilograms.

Damn, was I happy, my first fish, and its such a huge one. Really sibei song, the feeling of successfully hooking and landing it. Bugger put up one hell of a fight, but I persisted, holding on to my rod as though my life were on it, and in the end, of course I won, haha.

However, for all its notoriety that I heard about from friends who fish, I dont feel that the toman is really tt great a fighter. strong yes, but it gave up quite fast actually, less than 10 mins after it snapped on my popper and started pulling away, with me on the other end fighting to reel it in, and it was landed. Yet its so strong that, at times, my rod was almost a full 'C' shape when it dived in deep into the aqua vegetation, heng the rod never snap.

Would not have landed it so smoothly though, without the help of the 2 thai guys and their big ass net. These 2 guys were there at our secret spot even earlier than us, and had a temporary shelter up and five rods stationed there, using a mixture of raw liver and live catfish (favourite food of toman), and they had also landed two monstrous tomans ard 6 kgs each before I got mine. Since we readily helped them hold down the fish while they removed the hook, my guess is they were more than happy to help me with the monster that I landed.

Guess what, we even took photos of both their catch and my own also, but won't post them here la, too much hassle of uploading and linking and all tt nonsense.. Those of you who want to see can just go to my facebook acc.

Anyway, huge as the fish that were caught ytd, they were definitely not the biggest, as toman are known to be able to grow up to 30kgs, able to snap up a mid-sized dog or even a small child in one swoop. But ttz the stuff of urban legends la, I've never seen such a huge toman before, and dont think I ever will, unless I'm damn lucky. And even if I do see it some day, I also won't venture to catch it, cos its definitely too damn big for me or anyone I know to handle.

For now, I'll just be content with my first catch, and I foresee that I will be making many more trips ard places to fish for not just toman but all other types of fishes as I get more and more experienced. Haha, guess I'm just sorta hooked on fishing liao.